


introspection

by buck_begins



Series: Maddie Buckley week 2020 [7]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Canon-ish, Gen, for a show about first responders burn out is like never talked about which is weird so, some thoughts on maddie's past as a nurse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25799863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buck_begins/pseuds/buck_begins
Summary: Maddie had been a little surprised when May asked her about nursing school. Athena had talked about her daughter going in undecided, wanting to explore all her options. Apparently May had been exploring these options early.  Maddie couldn't blame her, between all of her parents' friends there wasn’t much of a variety in the type of job they all seemed to work.Day 7: Free Choice
Series: Maddie Buckley week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862182
Kudos: 10





	introspection

Maddie had been a little surprised when May asked her about nursing school. Athena had talked about her daughter going in undecided, wanting to explore all her options. Apparently May had been exploring these options early. Maddie couldn't blame her, between all of her parents' friends there wasn’t much of a variety in the type of job they all seemed to work. 

It felt nice to be asked about her past career. It wasn’t something that she got to talk about a lot, but some of her only happy memories from that time were working. May had pulled her off to the side to talk, seeming to want the conversation to be private. The two had talked for a bit, May asked a couple of surface level questions about nursing and nursing school in general. Maddie did her best to answer, but it had been a couple of years since she had done either. 

There were times when she missed it. There was something about actually seeing the person that you were helping that she had connected to. Going through the highs and lows with them, seeing mostly the same people day in and day out for weeks at a time. Forming those connections made the job what she loved, but they also tore her down. Every time she lost a patient, regardless of if there was anything she could have done, it weighed on her. The connection she formed that helped her love her job was the same reason every single loss felt personal. After a while she just couldn’t do it anymore. She loved working with patients and getting to know their stories, but she couldn’t handle losing them. Not when it was a hospital, and she knew the odds of losing them.

Maddie thought being an E.R nurse would be easier. Being busy to the point you couldn’t think. She helped a patient out and then sent them off. She didn’t have to learn about the outcomes. Once a patient either left the hospital doors or went in the elevator for another doctor she didn’t have to worry about them anymore. She didn’t have to connect with them anymore. There were always new patients coming in who needed her time and attention more. They kept her moving, forced her to keep moving. She thought that this would be better for her, but it wasn’t. 

Maybe it was the outside stresses in her life. Maybe it was the burnout from seeing patients going through traumas every day and having no way to stop it. Maybe it was just that she didn’t really want to become a nurse, but it’s what she had been told she would become. Maybe it was a mixture of all three. She wasn’t sure, but she took all her paid time off at once, giving her three weeks to make a decision on if she wanted to go back to nursing or not. She loved helping people, she really did, but there was just something about connecting with them, knowing they were a real person going through struggles just like she was, that made it so difficult for her. She couldn’t help but connect with them. They were just looking for someone to tell them everything was going to be okay when they came in, scared and alone. Every time someone came in, she couldn’t help but see a small piece of herself reflecting back in them. 

She needed those weeks off, she needed the time to self reflect. Figure out why she had gone into nursing. If she still even wanted to be a nurse. What she wanted to do with her life. The decision she ended up on had nothing to do with nursing. All she knew is she needed to get away from her life. It wasn’t a good place, hadn’t been for a while. She ran from it all, hopping on a bus to L.A., and not looking back. She could figure out if she wanted to still be a nurse out there, where the rest of the pressures of her life wouldn’t interfere. Where she could think about her future without the fear of repercussions from her husband. It had been three years since she saw her baby brother, he seemed to be doing fine in L.A., maybe she could too. 

It wasn’t like Maddie told May all of what she went through as a nurse, she just told her the important parts. School could never fully prepare you, but it never does for any career. There are so many specialties she could work in as a nurse, so if one didn’t click there were plenty of other options to choose from. It was long, stressful hours but it could be so rewarding. Maddie advised her, if she was really thinking about nursing, to take a couple of classes her freshman year to see if it interested her. Most of the basic courses taught valuable life skills like CPR and the heimlich maneuver anyways. If she decided nursing wasn’t for her, at least she had a few extra tricks up her sleeve. 

After her talk with May, Maddie’s eyes may have been a little more watery than they started off, but if anyone noticed they didn’t comment. She and Chim rushed out soon after, and if anyone asked why she looked like she had been crying she could just blame the hormones. She missed nursing sometimes, wondered what her life would be like if she went back to it. It could have been a completely different life experience for her opposed to being a 911 operator. She might have been happier there, helping people out face to face again. But if she had to place a bet on it, she would bet that she made the right decision when she told Buck she didn’t want to be a nurse again. She may have lied about her reasoning, but she made the right decision in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> whoops. I might add on to this later


End file.
